DISCLAIMER: Information and data in this page is provided without any warrany. I'm not responsible for the code. For any question not directly related to the installation method described below, please contact the author (e.g. via SourceForge).

IDLE Syntax Related Improvements

This page contains files and instructions for installing Noam Raphael's Syntax-Related improvements to IDLE.

The features are described in this tracker item

If you have further installation details (e.g. for other versions of python), mail them to me so I can add them here (also, if you have a better place to host this, I'll be grateful - this is only a temporary solution).

Installing current version of improved IDLE

Recently (7/5/05), I got this new version (thanks, Noam!). This time it comes as a seperate library, so we get:

Downsides are: larger size (still only 700k...), and harder to keep to date with cvs (well, most of us are not IDLE developers, so would not mind...)

So, let's install:

  1. Download following file: mydlelib.tar.gz
  2. Unpack it in your site-packages dir. For Linux it's probably /usr/lib/python2.x/site-packages or /usr/local/lib/python2.x/site-packages (you might need root). For Windows it's probably something like C:\Python2x\Lib\site-packages.

    Unpacking the file creates a new subfolder called mydlelib

  3. Run it! the new subfolder contains a file called idle.py (linux) or idle.pyw (windows). Type it on the commandline or just click it in your filebrowser. You should probably also make a shortcut for it on your taskbar or desktop.

Installing (older version) as a patch for idlelib in Python-2.3.5

  1. DL & Open following tarball: syntaxpatch_235.tar.gz
  2. Find your installation's idlelib directory (for Linux this is either /usr/lib/python2.3/idlelib or /usr/local/lib/python2.3/idlelib, for Window's it might be something like C:\Python23\Lib\idlelib.
  3. Choose a directory for installing your new IDLE.
    I suggest creating a new directory and adding it to your PYTHONPATH:
       mkdir -p ~/lib/python2.3/idlelib
       export PYTHONPATH=${HOME}/lib/python2.3:${PYTHONPATH}
    
    (I don't remember the windows equivalent - please mailme if you know).
    As an alternative: backup your original idlelib dir (from previous step), and just skip the following step.
  4. Copy all files from your original idlelib dir to the newly generated dir from previous step.
  5. Copy all files from the opened tarball in step 1, to your "new idlelib" directory, replacing any files existing in that dir.
  6. start idle. enjoy.

Patching cvs version (older version)


By Amit Aronovitch, aronovitch@gmail.com